Manchester City looking to activate Lionel Messi’s release clause

Manchester City are set to activate a £275million release clause in Lionel Messi’s contract, according to Yahoo.

Messi is yet to sign a new contract on the table with Barcelona worth a reported £1million-per-week, which would make him the highest paid player in the world and this has consequently led to the speculation that the Argentine star might be pondering an exit from the Camp Nou.

It is believed that Messi’s current contract has a release clause of £275million and Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour is looking to activate the clause, in the process making the 30-year-old the most expensive player in the world.

Should this move go through, it is set lead to a paradigm shift in the footballing world, as Manchester City will have arguably the best footballer in the planet within their rank and Barcelona will have lost two of their best players.

The prospective move for Messi might also mean that football fans could get to witness two record breaking transfers in a single window after Neymar moved from Barcelona to PSG for a record breaking move earlier on in the summer.

This rumor comes only a couple of weeks after Neymar was sold to PSG for an unbelievable €222 million and with the Catalan giants yet to sign their replacement, it will clearly be a serious blow for the Spanish giants if Messi follows Neymar out of Camp Nou.

If we look from Messi’s point of view, in addition to a lucrative contract at City, he will be reuniting with his former boss, Pep Guardiola, and the last time the duo worked together they won 14 trophies for Barcelona.

Messi has been linked with a move away at various stages of his Barcelona career so far but it never looked like a transfer for the Argentine legend was possible as the cost to sign the attacker always seemed too high for any club to pay.

However, following Neymar’s quarter billion move to PSG, £275 million for the Argentine superstar looks reasonable.

Although Messi’s potential move to Manchester City may seem unthinkable, having already witnessed Neymar’s move to PSG, the entire footballing world will hold their breath waiting for possibly the biggest transfer to ever go through in the final week of the currenet transfer window.